


Demonology For Dummies

by Saucery



Series: Spideypool Stories [7]
Category: Deadpool (2016), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Canon-Typical Violence, Comedy, Companionable Snark, Deal with a Devil, Demon Summoning, Demon/Human Relationships, Demons, Devils, Drama, Dubcon Kissing, Dubious Consent, Falling In Love, Fantasy, Flirting, Humor, Inaccurate Catholicism, Inaccurate Christianity, Justice, Juvenile Detention Centers, Kissing, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Morally Ambiguous Character, Orphans, Reform School, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Romance, Satan - Freeform, Sexual Humor, Sexual References, Social Commentary, Soul-Searching, Soulgaze, Virginity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:36:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8945809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: Peter summons a demon. A demon that promptly starts hitting on him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in a supernatural modern-day setting, and draws on the real-world horrors of America’s [private prison system](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/private-juvenile-prisons/) that locks away young people for negligible crimes, only to use them as slave labor or to abuse them in other heinous ways. Peter is in a juvenile detention center that is about to be privatized, and he is desperate to do anything to save his fellow “inmates” from what will become a living hell…
> 
> That said, this story is more humorous than not, and Deadpool kills all the bad guys. So, y’know, rest easy. The kids will be all right. In this fantasy version of reality, anyway.

* * *

  


Sister May would be horrified to know that Peter had painted a pentagram in his room—with his own blood, no less—and that he’d traded his sole possession, his beloved camera, for a demonology textbook from the secondhand magic bookstore down the block.

He wasn’t sure it’d succeed. Yeah, the mayor had recently been arrested for getting caught summoning a demon, but he was the _mayor_ , and he must have more to offer a demon, deal-wise, than an impoverished wannabe scientist desperate to save the world. Or the only part of the world Peter could save—the Trinity Youth Reform Center.

Peter’s heart beat rabbit-fast as he lit the candles at the points of the pentagram. The cuts beneath the bandage on his arm itched. The demon could just eat him, if it felt he couldn’t pay his dues for the summons. Stories of people found in their homes with their heads bitten off were common in the Daily Bugle, often accompanied by gory photographs of severed necks and torn-off limbs. Jesus. And to think that, as a child, Peter had dreamed of working for the Bugle. Its standards had fallen from proper reporting to sheer sensationalism.

Not that Peter was gonna live long enough to get a job. He didn’t have much to offer a demon, except for his miserable life. And the soul he’d promised Sister May he’d keep intact. Just the act of summoning hellspawn was tantamount to throwing that precious soul—a soul Sister May had assured him was precious—into the spiritual equivalent of a gutter.

Peter completed lighting the candles and withdrew, reciting the last verse of the spell.

He still didn’t expect it to do anything.

How wrong he was.

The very instant he finished his chant, the blood-lines of the pentagram sparked and took off, like trails of gunpowder, tracing the star-shaped pattern before hissing out in a sudden onslaught of foul, putrid smoke.

Peter fell backward, coughing. He was terrified. The terror rattled through his ribcage like a storm through a copse of reedy trees, and he lunged for the cross that was hanging above his desk. It might not help much, but it might delay the demon and give Peter a chance to pray before he died.

When the smoke cleared, the creature that stood there was…

Red. Very red. Stereotypical devil-red. It took Peter an incredulous moment to realize it was because the human-shaped figure was wearing spandex. Red spandex. Demons wore spandex?

As he gaped, the masked demon surveyed him from head to toe, whistled, and said: “Heck, yeah. I bagged a pretty one.”

Peter stared. And stared. He almost said something foolish—about how uncomfy that outfit must be—but what emerged was even more foolish than Peter usually was. “What, no dramatic spiel?” Peter said, heart still pounding, because apparently being frightened out of his wits gave him the self-preservation instincts of a lemming. “No, ‘I am Morgoth, demon of the depths, and I am here for your soul’?”

“Oooh,” said the demon. “Sassy, too. I like it. Okay, firstly, Morgoth is a weak-ass motherfucker. As in, he literally is a motherfucker. He fucked his mother. It’s what landed him in Hell. Secondly, how lame do you have to be to name yourself after a Tolkien villain? Thirdly… I’m here for your ass. Let’s be honest. Not that your soul isn’t all shiny and sweet, but that ass is lookin’ nice to me. It’s been ages since I got laid.”

Peter decided not to address the fact that he was being hit on by a demon, because then he’d have to cope with it, and he had no clue how to cope with it. It must be a joke. Who’d find Peter attractive? “You’re just jealous about the Tolkien thing. Bet you wish your name was from Tolkien.”

“How do you know it isn’t from Tolkien?”

“The, um, spandex. Doesn’t exactly give off a Middle Earth feel.”

The demon grinned. “You’re right. It’s Deadpool. As in, Pool of the Dead. Get it? The Styx?”

“That’s a river, not a pool. What are you, the pool-boy of the underworld?”

“Satan’s tits, kid, aren’t you worried you’ll offend me? Most folks are groveling in their own tears by now.”

“I’m not most folks.” Peter wondered where this newfound bravado was coming from. Also, whether Satan had tits. “And your name’s lamer than Morgoth.”

“What? No, it isn’t! I’ll have your head for that!”

Peter froze.

“Er,” said Deadpool, after a strained silence. “That was a joke? I don’t actually eat heads. Just bodies. Seriously, stop looking like you’re gonna pass out.”

“I’m not,” Peter gasped, trying not to pass out.

Deadpool stepped out of the pentagram, assessing Peter’s room. “Lemme guess. You want money?”

Peter scowled, swiftly regaining his composure now that he had moral indignation on his side. “Gee, thanks for assuming I’m a money-monger. I get that my room’s really, um—”

“A desert of material goods? Empty of all signs of human habitation?”

“There’s a bed.”

“That’s a bed? It looks like a slab in a mortuary, and about as comfortable.”

“Corpses don’t need to be comfortable.”

“Says _you_. I used to be a corpse, once. And let me tell you, a velvet-lined coffin is way comfier than a plain wooden coffin. Quality of death is as important as quality of life, if not more, ’cause you’ll be stuck in that accommodation for a long, long time.”

Peter still wasn’t giving up on defending his room. “There’s the desk, too.”

“That rickety contraption? Can you even rest your elbows on it without it creaking like an old woman’s joints?”

“No,” admitted Peter, sullenly.

“Heh. Thought so. You could use the money.” Deadpool approached him, and Peter scrambled back, cross held aloft.

“Put that down,” Deadpool said impatiently. “Honestly. Why bother summoning me if you can’t even have a conversation with me without waving pointless religious imagery around?”

“It’s not pointless. The cross is a symbol of selfless and divine love—”

“Sweetheart, I’m not interested in discussing Jesus. If I was, I’d have gone for the Jehovah’s Witness who summoned me this morning.”

Peter blinked. “A Jehovah’s Witness summoned you?”

“Ironic, huh? You’d reckon he’d have morals, but no. He had a secret yen for prepubescent girls. He hoped he’d get unlimited access to them if he had a demon as an accomplice, vanishing girl-children off the street for him without breaking his cover as a pillar of his community.”

How sickening. “And… And you didn’t do the job?”

Deadpool grinned. Widely. Toothily. Was that _blood_ staining the tips of his canines?

“You ate him,” Peter hazarded, disbelieving. “Why?”

“Eh, a demon’s gotta eat, every now and then. Not ickle cuties like you,” Deadpool said hastily, when Peter reflexively raised the cross again. “Like I said, crosses are pointless. They don’t chase us baddies away, just… cheese us off. Which is not the outcome you’re looking for, trust me. Anyhow, I have to see you up close.”

“Why?” Peter demanded.

“To indulge in a bit of romantic soul-gazing, whaddaya think? The eyes are the windows to the soul, et cetera, and I need to peek into yours. I won’t take your job, either, if your soul’s not worth it.”

Peter… put down the cross. He _was_ going to require Deadpool’s assistance, so wouldn’t it be counter-productive to piss him off now that he was here? And in a weird way, given Deadpool’s earlier joke, it was a relief that Deadpool was aiming for Peter’s soul and not his ass, irrational as it was to prefer sacrificing his soul, which was immortal, to sacrificing his virginity, which was a mortal, temporary state.

“Good boy,” said Deadpool, hushed and soothing, as he crowded Peter against the peeling wall, his body somehow emanating an extraordinary heat, as if he’d just emerged from the fires of Hell.

That was why Peter began sweating. Of course it was. Or maybe he was just that scared.

Deadpool studied Peter speculatively, reaching out to touch Peter’s face and making another shushing noise when Peter flinched. “I won’t hurt you,” Deadpool lied, because it had to be a lie. There was no demon that didn’t hurt anyone. “Oh, but you’re _adorable_ , aren’t you? Eyes up, now. Don’t be afraid. All I’m gonna do is look into you. Just looking, promise.”

Wow. Like having a demon “look into” him wasn’t intimidating in the least. Peter met Deadpool’s blank, white, uncanny gaze, masked and utterly devoid of expression if it wasn’t for the exaggerated mobility of the rest of Deadpool’s features, which were currently unmoving as Deadpool focused on soul-gazing.

There was a slow, hot surge building within Peter the longer Deadpool peered into him, as if his soul were being drawn up to the surface for closer inspection, and was suffusing his skin with warmth. It felt like he was glowing, or blushing, or both.

“Man, oh, man,” Deadpool whispered reverently, his gloved fingers tilting Peter’s jaw up. His breath brushed Peter’s lips, a surprisingly clean scent, all ash and lightning. “Now _this_ is that rarest of pearls, an untarnished soul. You’ve never sinned, have you? Not before summoning me, at any rate?”

Peter’s answer was a stutter. “S-sinned? Yes, I have. I’ve lied, like I lied to Sister May about selling my camera—”

“ _Real_ sinning, Petey-boy. The sort that corrodes. The sort with ill intentions.”

Peter would’ve asked how Deadpool knew his name without an introduction, but he figured that if the guy could soul-gaze, he could read names off souls, too. “Um. No?”

“Or a sin that’s truly naughty. Exploring your dark desires, maybe. Sadism? No? Ah. Nope. Not that I can see. Not even masturbation, am I right? Virginal to others and to yourself?”

“M-mast… That’s… That’s not allowed!”

“Not allowed? What a waste. You’re gorgeous. And here’s a hint,” Deadpool bent even lower, his voice unnervingly intimate in Peter’s ear: “Masturbation isn’t a sin. Neither is sex, so long as it doesn’t aggravate your destructive urges.”

“That’s what a demon would say. You’re just trying to convince me that sinning isn’t sinning, so you can tempt me into sin, and—and—”

“Have you forgotten that demons cannot lie to their summoners? It’s in the contract, sugar.”

“What contract? You haven’t accepted my—”

“I hereby accept your contract,” Deadpool said, with an air of formality that was frankly bizarre, given his personality. “As the demon, I set the terms of what you are to offer me in return, be it your soul, your life, your sins or the lives of others that you shall offer in your stead, should you be unable to pay me yourself. For each mission I carry out under your orders, I shall claim a payment of my choice. I choose…”

Peter stopped breathing. This was it. This was when Deadpool could decide to do anything to Peter. _Anything_.

“…a kiss.”

What?

Deadpool leaned back, pleased. He was nodding to himself, like he’d just had the most brilliant idea ever. He was incomprehensible. How was a kiss a sufficient substitute for a soul?

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Peter protested, not because he preferred giving up his soul, but because he simply couldn’t comprehend Deadpool’s logic. “A kiss lasts for, what, a minute? A soul lasts for eternity.”

“A minute?” Deadpool chuckled. “Mm. Well. You’ve clearly never been kissed—not properly, anyway. Done properly, a kiss lasts longer than eternity.”

“That’s impossible.” Peter was aware that he was being childishly mulish, but he couldn’t help it. This was _ludicrous_. Worse, it was unscientific. Not that the supernatural was ever especially scientific, but still. There were baseline rules to adhere to.

“It’s very, very possible. And I could hardly claim more than a kiss from you, lovely as your ass is, because I’m not in the habit of plundering virgins. I mean, I wish I _were_ , but you’re nowhere near ready for that, and I can’t hurry that along, no matter how powerful I am. Besides, I don’t want to hurry it along. That’s not what I’m into.”

“And planting kisses on people against their will is what you’re into?”

Deadpool scratched his skull. “No, but if I don’t claim _some_ payment from you, preferably a payment that increases your probability of sinning at least nominally and therefore allows me to fulfill my demonic duty, the Grand Master-Mistress will snatch this case right out from under my nose and attend to you hirself. And that, uh. That would be very unfortunate. For you. And for me.”

“Is that… Satan you’re talking about?”

“The one and only.”

“So Satan isn’t male?”

Deadpool snorted. “They’d consider that an insult, because they think gender binaries are a construct God fabricated with the duality of Adam and Eve, a construct that’s, in hir words, ‘stupid and useless.’ Which is sorta cool. But that doesn’t mean you want Satan to subject you to the royal treatment of ten-thousand cigarette burns all over your body, for years at a stretch.” Deadpool flipped up the bottom of his mask, revealing a mouth that would’ve been beautiful were it not twisted into a rope of scars. The skin of the chin and the neck was likewise scarred, pitted and gouged and grotesque.

Peter paled. “Satan… Satan did that to you.”

“Does it to me on a continuous basis. Mostly because I’m a bleeding-heart lunatic who refuses to kill the humans I _should_ kill and insists on killing the humans I shouldn’t. Which is why I can never heal, even though asswipes like Morgoth look like fucking GQ models.” Deadpool held up his hands. “Not that I’m bitter about it. Do I seem bitter?”

“A little,” said Peter.

“Decades of torture will do that to you. Not that I’m questioning my overlord-slash-overlady’s methods! Whatever it takes to instill discipline, I say. Bondage can only go so far.” Deadpool tensed and inclined his head, as if cocking an ear, and then relaxed, his shoulders slumping. “Whew. They aren’t listening in. Sometimes, they are, and my goose gets cooked.”

“For speaking your mind?”

“For speaking at all. I tend to get on people’s nerves when I blabber. Particularly my boss’s nerves.”

Peter hadn’t imagined having stuff in common with Satan, but this was turning out to be a very educational day. “When will you claim your, um, fee?”

“The kiss? Or kisses, plural?”

Peter frowned. “You distinctly said ‘kiss.’ Singular.”

“Per job, Pete. You have several jobs for me, don’t you? I got a couple names from you, while I was sightseeing inside of you. Mr Haveton. Mrs Dupont. Mr Lorne. Mr Krishnamurthy. Mrs Cavendish.”

“Don’t. Don’t ever just casually spy on my consciousness again.”

Deadpool shrugged. “Noted. Who are they, though? The evildoers you’re obsessing about?”

“They’re on the Juvenile Justice Committee. And they’re about to vote to privatize this center. It’s a youth detention center run on charitable donations from the local church, and it’s supposed to be getting us kids back on-track, but we all know what happens to centers after they’re privatized.”

“Child labor. Prostitution. Institutionalized abuse. Criminal neglect. Indentured slavery.” Deadpool ticked the points off with pistol-like ‘poofs,’ his fingertips smoking like guns. “I’ve heard of those privatized shindigs. They spawn a whole host of sins. Got many a demon many a promotion, being involved in all that.”

Peter glared. “Were _you_ involved in all that?”

“Nah. Not my style. Bureaucracies are boring as fuck. So, do I kill them? The Cavendishes and the Duponts?”

“Wha—no! No killing!”

“Then what am I supposed to do, wine and dine ’em? Play the part of an industry executive out to bribe them to do the opposite of what all the other executives have been bribing them to do? That won’t work. It’ll be unrealistic.” Deadpool smiled encouragingly. “Killing _always_ works. It’s final. No more problems. Nada.”

“Except that we’re dealing with a system here,” Peter said, annoyed. “Ever heard of the hydra? Chop off a head and three more grow back?”

“Sounds like Morgoth’s penis.”

“Deadpool!”

“Sorry, sorry. But if I ain’t killing them, and I ain’t corrupting them, then what am I doing?”

“Getting…” Peter felt ashamed to have fallen to using those snide, conniving swindlers’ tactics against them. “Getting the dirt on them. And making it public. Who they’re getting bribed by, and why.”

“My, my. Learning from the best, are we? We’ll have you sinning, yet.”

Peter hung his head.

“Aw, baby, no. What you’re doing isn’t _quite_ sinning, because your motivations are pure. As pure as you are. Don’t be sad. I’ll have their heads on pikes soon enough!” Catching Peter’s look, Deadpool quickly amended: “I’ll have their reputations in tatters!”

“Who’ll you go after, first?”

“Cavendish, methinks. That memory you had of her? Yipes. She deserves my full and undivided—” Deadpool sneered. “—attention. And when I’m done with her, I’ll charge my fee.”

So, not yet. Whew.

“But I wouldn’t complain if I got a sneak preview.” Deadpool darted in to peck Peter on the cheek, and danced away, laughing, when Peter batted at him.

“That wasn’t in the contract!”

“That wasn’t a real kiss. Not the way I meant it.”

“If you demons can change anything according to the way you ‘mean’ it, then what purpose does a contract serve?”

“I can’t lie about how I meant it. That’s… kind of a limiting factor?”

“Is that a question or an answer?”

“ _Damn_ , you’re a tightass. With a tight ass. That’s practically the definition of my type.”

“Deadpool—”

“I’ll be back after I’ve dragged Mrs Camille Cavendish’s oh-so-pristine record through the mud. Ciao!”

And with that, Deadpool was gone, leaving a puff of sulphur behind him.

Peter tottered to his bunk, where his knees promptly gave out.

He’d made a deal with a devil. A literal deal. With a literal devil.

Sister May was _so_ going to have his hide for this.

  


* * *

**to be continued.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually think that sadism in a healthy, consensual context is not a sin—heck, I practice it—but I had to construct an irritating system of religious moral codes, and… Well, here we are. I certainly do not hold to those codes, myself. My life would be, as Wade said, “boring as fuck” if I did.

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Want updates and sneak previews? Follow me on [Tumblr](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)! I also run a blog for my [original gay fiction](http://dominiquefrost.tumblr.com/).


End file.
